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The evolving thought
The life-journey of your thoughts
To summarize some of the issues we have discussed over the course of the classes, we could begin by speaking of the way we are conditioned in our society to search externally for Laughter, Love and Learning. This external search leads us to think:

  • Happiness is space and time bound – " I will be happy when something happens ."

  • Love is outward. "When I find someone then I will begin to love ."

  • We even deal with trauma outwardly. " I am feeling bad – lets go shopping ", feeling sick - put on the TV, grieving - "do something - go somewhere to forget about my grief . "

  • We are even taught to search for our sense of self outside of ourselves. Constructing who we are, by the job we do, or the career aspirations we have, or the clothes we wear or the people we associate with, or even where I might fit in my family tree.

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors.
Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits.
Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny. - M.K. Gandhi Reflections
We ask the world to acknowledge and value us before we will acknowledge and value ourselves.

How many people work so hard, 50-70-100 hours a week, so that they can have things that will make people say, " wow look at him , he has so many things."

Our things do not and can not define us, no matter how hard we try.

If I wear Nikes and drive a Range Rover does not necessarily mean I am successful, nor if I ride a skateboard and dye my hair and go surfing mean I am cool. These are just things.

Clarity is realising that everything is for a reason: red, white, brown, male, female, we are here with a fantastic gift. Everything is a gift.

Thrive on whatever comes. Even if it is tragic – it is a blessing. And if it is magic – it is also a blessing.

They are all gifts, nothing happens without reason. From the moment we are born the process of limiting us begins.

A story... Kill him!” the old lady sobbed hysterically “KILL HIM!”

The men pushed the young warrior to the ground and forced him towards the chief of the tribe. “Kill him! Kill him” the mob yelled.

The chief reached out to the old lady, his wife, and pulled her sobbing, grief stricken eyes to his chest. The capturer of the young warrior, the chief’s son stepped forward.

“Father, this is the warrior that has killed my brother, we must kill him!” The crowd surrounding the scene grew more frantic, “kill him” they cried over and over.

Drums were beating to the rhythm of their chants – the young warrior lay on the ground but was defiant, seemingly never giving up. The old chief stepped forward and the noise grew in anticipation. “Will killing him feed our children?” he whispered, his eyes steady. But few heard him so he spoke again, this time directly to the loudest of the crowd, ‘will killing him return my boy to us?”  The crowd became quieter “will killing him make the sunrise any sooner?”

The daughter of the chief, a beautiful young girl then ran to the warrior the murderer of her brother and pulling the knife from his hands she yelled “father this is knife that killed your son, this is the blood of my brother and this is the animal that has committed this crime, you are a coward if he is not killed right now.” She raised the knife high above her head ready to plunge it into the captive warrior but the chief caught her hand easily in his powerful grip and held it there.

He whispered even more quietly “will killing him save your brother?” and everything went quiet and still. Then there was a tiny squeak of a voice. “No” said the old lady. “No it won’t” she repeated.  And a murmur rolled around the crowd “no” they repeated.

The drums stopped and everyone listened as the old man pulled his wife and daughter and son to his chest, “this matter needs careful consideration, I would like to contemplate this overnight and explain my decision to you all at sunrise.”

The next day the chief called the tribe and the captive warrior to him. He had considered the matter carefully and had also discovered that the captive warrior’s parents had long ago been killed. He spoke deliberately – “you see that tepee up there , that was my son’s. Those horses, his as well, they are yours now, you will be my son, and you will replace the son that you have killed.”

The warrior looked up, confused. The chief looked at him gently and smiled.

The warrior’s eyes filled with tears. Brown Bear went on to become a most devoted son and actually saved the lives of both his new brother and the newborn child of his sister in other battles.

The chief was wise, he did not want to carry the burden of hate with him, and his forgiveness freed him and his family from carrying that heavy baggage. He forgave not because he had to, it would have been far easier to kill him, but because he knew that it was the wisest thing to do.

We need this kind of forgiveness of others but most importantly of ourselves. We must be comfortable with ourselves. We must be able to look into a mirror and accept every part of ourselves. This acceptance is the start of love... We define freedom in terms of being free of some of the things that bind us, our wealth and material possessions, work, even the day-to-day family responsibilities. We hear frequencies from 20 to 20,000khz and call it sound. We see the spectrum between infra-red and ultraviolet and call it light. We touch something with our fingers and we say it has been felt.

We don’t believe in reality beyond those ranges and we are actively conditioned not to. But put plugs in our ears so we cannot hear and notice what happens. The other senses compensate. They become super-senses – so powerful that we almost feel that we do not need the sense that we have lost.

What if I were to tell you that you had another sense that you had invisibly capped. That by entering into this world with all it’s conditioning it had forced you to close that sense.

That for thousands of years all the worlds greatest philosophies had spoken of this sense as central to the fulfilment and meaning in our lives. All of your other senses have tried to compensate but your ‘heart’ is so central to your perception of freedom and love and peace and fulfilment that all of us are left feeling hollow and lost and as though there is something very basic that we do not understand.

You can not be a spiritual person by just having the intention, you have to have intention and live it, do the practice and empower yourself to live the messages of your soul.

Real unconditional love is realising that every starving mother and starving child is your mother, your child, that anyone that hurts, that you hurt, that anything that is harmed you are harmed. Real love is infinitely larger than romance - it speaks of the connection with the force that runs through us all. If your life doesn’t feel like this then you’ve got some wonderful things waiting for you, a wonderful exciting journey ahead..
 
Thoughts don't finish their journey until they become love
Do you remember our conversation about the force in class 3? We tried to explain the nature of the dark and light side of the force and how it affected state of mind. It was a simple way of explaining that thoughts are not all the same in the way that they affect state of mind. We alluded to the process of the light of the soul, and how it inevitably illumines our consciousness.

The conclusion of this was the realization that thoughts can range from the uncontrolled reactive rage of aggression, hate and violence to the pure, blissful, ecstatic feelings of ever-expanding love. The out of control cacophony of thoughts, versus the direct, peaceful intuitive flow of the soul's light, of wisdom and truth from within us.

I would like you to imagine for a moment that thoughts are just like souls. They also are eternal. They also are journeying from darkness to light. They also are daily confronted with the barrage of pressures from the external world. They also are looking for freedom. And every thought – every thought - leaves a fragrance (sometimes a stench) that shapes our state of mind that we view our world through.

The journey for every thought is from gross physical or material desire to love in all its flavours: from romance to real wisdom or truth.  

The result of this is the idea that every thought, is on a journey within us. Just as if it were one of our own children, every thought is born and must be nurtured and guided and developed until it becomes love (no longer a thought but an intuitive experience).

Our hateful thoughts need to be directed and lifted, not to be rejected but to be loved and empowered. To reject our hate-child, for example, is to stop truly looking at ourselves. The hate-child still exists within us, but we refuse to look at it. It becomes an anchor that won't allow us to sail free of the lower states of mind forever.

As we lift our consciousness, however, we find that the child-thoughts that we give birth to are surrounded by more and more positive role models and empowering guides. Simply put, every thought we have, stays in our consciousness, whether it be way back in the sub-conscious or more directly in the conscious mind, every thought is a crucial foundation in the construction of our present state of mind.

Getting our heads around this idea emphasizes the importance of simplicity and purity. The fewer thoughts we have, the more positively they are selected, the more mindful we are not to allow the birth of negative thoughts, the less we are weighed down by the responsibility of carrying a multitude of naughty children through to their final evolution.

The upshot is that we reach a state where we do not think thoughts at all. We actually are able to directly intuit the truth and wisdom within each of us. So what to do? There are a number of important conclusions.
    ♥ First, we must accept all of our children, good and bad, and love them all equally. Look yourself in the mirror and accept and love all the constructors of your present state of mind. Remember that love is the most powerful evolver of any wayward child.
    ♥ Second, just like a naughty child sometimes it is necessary to firmly correct undisciplined behaviour. So don’t be afraid to gently but firmly offer love and guidance to aspects of your present state of mind.
    ♥ Thirdly, create an inspiring environment for your state of mind, being considerate of the sorts of children you allow your thoughts to hang around with and the situations you place yourself in.
    ♥ Finally, remember that the consciousness you are evolving to, is one of direct intuition. A place where your state of mind is constantly empowered by the infinite love, peace and truth of the heaven within you. This consciousness you reach often in meditation, so practice it as often as you can and more importantly practice staying there.

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Guided Meditation - The Leaf
Please read this information on preparing for your meditation

Pick up a leaf. Place it in the palm of your hand.

Look at how perfect it is – if it is decaying, watch how other little lives are beginning : the bacteria and insects that it is feeding.

Look at how the circle of nature continues, how death creates life.

Put all your attention on that little leaf, imagine how it was born. A tiny unfurling beauty that sparkled in the sun. How it strove for the light reaching up through the forest canopy and fluttered in the wind.

Then one day it had grown old and was losing its hold on the branch that had carried it, its family, the tree that had sustained it, began to direct its nutrients to other newer leaves and gradually its hold became weaker and weaker until finally it had to let go and it fell and floated to the earth, to feed the very tree that gave it life, in its death.

Contemplate that perfect balance for a few moments. The perfect balance of sun, wind and water that the leaf had thrived and lived and died in. And then realize that as you contemplate this forest, there are millions of leaves, millions of perfectly balanced evolving little lives of perfectly circular motions of nature.

Realize that you are following exactly the same journey. Rejoice and realize that heaven is here, now.